After the dramatic reunion, Roi helped Excel carry his bags inside. Excel wandered throughout the house after stepping through the main door, which sat between two vinyl windows. The living room had a vintage parlor feel, where he found three couches in front of a fireplace with an espresso rectangular table in the middle.
There was another doorway that led them to an L-shaped kitchen with a staircase. He climbed the stairs with Roi and found two additional doors past the bathroom, all closed as if waiting to be explored.
Roi found Excel trying to open the door beside the bathroom, stopping him in his tracks.
"That's the master bedroom—Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom. Don't open it. That's not where you're staying." Roi continued walking to the third door on the right. "This is the room you'll stay in."
Excel's cousin stepped in and sat on the king-size bed. He had placed Excel's bags next to the oak wardrobe.
"So, this is my room?" said Excel.
"This will be our room."
There was no trace of glee on his cousin's face. Though he wanted to question him, Excel just plummeted himself onto the bed. Excel recalled how his cousin stated the memory of how he remembered him.
"A cousin whom you used to steal hen's egg when you were five, huh," Excel mumbled. He was throwing unnoticeable glares at Roi.
Excel watched Roi, and from his observations, Roi was clumsy and awkward, leading Excel to believe he wasn't very good with girls. He might even go as far thinking Roi was still a virgin.
His cousin spun his head to Excel's direction. "Are you saying something?"
"Nope, nothing."
"Anyway, the school semester's starting soon, and we need to get enrolled. The enrollment will be tomorrow already, so you have to wake up early." Roi reminded him.
"What do you mean? I am going back to Mom and you'll enroll in my school, is that so?"
"Nope." Roi displayed a stern face. "You'll be enrolling in Tajana University."
Excel jerked up from the bed. "Are you serious?" His brows furrowed. "I've already passed my papers in a university at the city." His phone rang suddenly.
"Now you can ask about your papers." Roi suggested after he leaned in to see the called ID on Excel's phone.
Excel answered the call. "Hello, Mom..."
"Hey, honey, how was your trip?"
"Mom, I'm already enrolled in the Weston University. Why do I need to enroll here? How long am I staying?"
"It's for your own good, honey. I'll send your papers there, where you can follow it up." Excel's mother sighed on the other end of the line.
"Why didn't you just talk to me? We could have settled this. Why does it feel like you're punishing me?" Excel fidgeted as he continued walking around the room.
"It's because I don't know what to do with you. I don't know where I went wrong as a mother. I tried to balance my time for work and for you. I always give you what you want, but you seem to be rebelling against me. You don't follow my rules, and you always do what you want. Your life is heading down the wrong path, and as your mother, it hurts me seeing you doing that to yourself. I had to do something." Her voice was cracked.
"And you think this is the solution?"
"I'm sorry, honey." Her voice was soft, almost fragile, as if it and his heart would break any minute.
Excel hung up as he sat back to bed. He was upset knowing that his mother was serious upon moving him with his grandparents even if it was just temporary. But after deep thought, he realized it was a good idea too. Through enrolling to their school, he believed he would get to meet the girls there in Tajana—the country girls or the conservatives, according to how his grandma described them.
Excel stayed in the room with Roi until their grandma called them for dinner. After that, the whole house went to sleep but Excel. He tossed and turned, trying to forget the move to his grandparents as if it were a dream. Since he couldn't sleep, Excel took his phone and checked pictures of times when he could still hang out with his friends until his phone ran out of power. He missed his city life.
The next day, Excel felt rough hands shaking him, but he couldn't force himself to care. No matter how hard Roi shook, Excel could not bring himself to get out of the bed to face his new life.
"If you don't wake up, I will fart on your face," Roi mumbled.
Excel could hear him, but his sleeping brain couldn't yet process what Roi had murmured.
Roi wondered what a better way to wake Excel up was. As he shook Excel again, he had a thought. "Excel! Your mom just showed up! She's downstairs right now! I think she missed you and is here to take you home!
Excel rose like he'd been hit by lightning. "Really?"
"You go take a shower now. Hurry!"
Excel grabbed a towel and rushed into the bathroom. When he was done, he asked Roi, "What is Mom doing here anyway? Why didn't she come up here?"
Roi's brows wrinkled. "What are you saying? Your mom is not here."
"What?" he shouted. "You just told me she was here a few minutes ago."
"You're still dreaming. I said hurry up because we'll be late for our enrollment at Tajana University."
Excel gaped. He knew he had just woken up when he heard him say that but he was sure of what he'd heard. He knew his cousin had been fooling around with him. "You'll pay for this."
"Snap out of it. It wasn't my fault you heard me wrong."
Excel glared at him. Roi shrugged out of pretense.
They went down to the car after preparing themselves for the day. Lucho was in the driver's seat. He had backed the car from the garage all the way to the road and began their journey.
Tajana University was a hundred yards away to the south and could be reached in three minutes by car and fifteen minutes on foot.
Lucho dropped Roi and Excel off in front of a huge gate with a sign reading Tajana University. The boys went inside. It was the only university in Tajana and was crowded with people who would also enroll.
Trees were scattered inside the gate, and lawn surrounded the stone-covered pathways they needed to take to reach the light-brown horizontal building.
The girls that passed them looked like their heads were magnetically attached to Excel's face. They giggled as the two travelled across the pathway. Roi rushed, not wanting him to get noticed. Other girls bit their lips as Excel passed. There was even a girl whose papers fell right from her hands when Excel combed his hair with his hands, fixing his hair that was slightly messed by the sudden gust of the wind.
"Look at these girls, Roi," Excel chuckled. "I just hope their underwear stayed still."
Girls gossiping had been following the two as they complied with the enrollment procedure. They were walking on the tiled floor of the lobby when a girl with small eyes spaced widely apart purposely bumped into Excel.
"Oh. I'm sorry." Her lips curved upward. "I'm Sheila, by the way. And you are?"
As soon as she extended her hand, another girl with a brows-covered full bangs shoved her. "O-m-g! Excel Mariano!" shouted the girl at the top of her lungs right in front of him.
It caught a lot of attention, and that's why girls who knew him rushed toward him until a bunch of them were already in front of him, extending their hands to touch him.
"Grandma must see this, so she can see how conservative they are right now," he said to Roi, blocking those girls' hands, chuckling. Roi was helping him block them too.
"Everyone stop!" Someone howled. "He's mine!"